Ephraim Schwartz

After suffering the slings and arrows of Gartner Inc. and others who questioned its value in early 2003, it looks as if CRM is coming back with a vengeance

The proliferation of RFID readers and tags has only just begun, but some analysts are already predicting that when fully operational, RFID will generate upwards of 5TB of data at a company's warehouse and distribution center on a daily basis.

VPNs, firewalls, and anti-virus are the big three of security. But the dirty little secret is that a lot of this software and hardware exists more to CYA than to prevent your network and data from being compromised.

Market intelligence will get even smarter by early third quarter when Factiva, a business unit of Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive LLC, is expected to launch an application dubbed Reputation Management.

Once an idea turns into a craze, there's no stopping it. But IT crazes typically burn themselves out before too long. Once numerous cautionary tales begin to surface of people or companies getting burned, expectations get pulled back a few notches and assessments get more realistic.

Thanks to machine-to-machine intelligence, an Italian washing machine company realized it could give away its washing machines to consumers, then charge them on a pay-per-load basis using wireless-monitoring devices.

Leveraging its recent acquisition of Brio Software Inc., Hyperion announced this week a new BI Platform that combines its Essbase Version 7, OLAP platform, and Hyperion Performance Suite Version 8.2, formerly the Brio Performance Suite for ad hoc querying and reporting.

Citing the need to upgrade the PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne Supplier Relationship Management suite to support demand-driven manufacturing, PeopleSoft will unveil three major components to the suite at the National Manufacturing Week 2004 Conference in Chicago this week.